I don't like the Stick, and the Direct architecture seems simpler, more effecient.

I don't much care for Orion either.
The value of 3 man capsules is that you can dock multiples for a 6 man ISS crew,
and thus have more escape options for the ISS crew in case of fire, mis-dock, or space debris puncture,
or another unforeseen failure mode.
3 man capsules are not tied to one particular launcher, but in the case of Stick failure manned capability is lost.

Getting out of the VSE architecture is not going to be as hard as getting out of Iraq.

I'm looking forward to the Griffin debriefs, as well as getting access to the correspondence on this mess.